Summaries of Tales from Mammoth Book of Merlin

 by Minnie Apolis

“The Horse Who Would Be King” a humorous take on Sword-in-the-Stone Tale

[stories from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (TMBOM)]

If you need a bit of a break from too-serious or too-doomed tales from the King Arthur oeuvre, may I recommend the above story from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (TMBOM)?

Horse-lovers will find it entirely fitting that Merlin's magical steed engineers a way to not only create a sword, but fix it so that our humble and hapless sap, I mean hero, is the one to pull out said sword from said stone.

The noble sword Excalibur is created from the broad blaze on Merlin's horse – which I find entirely fitting. Only a noble animal like a horse could possibly create a noble sword like Excalibur! A sword named after the horse, of course.

And needless to say, our Artie pulls out the sword and then hands it over Kay without letting anyone know a thing about it, and then Kay goes around claiming to be The Rightwise Born King of England, so that Merlin (and his horse) have to finagle a way to get the sword BACK in the dang stone and gather everyone around once more for another go at pulling it out. I mean, it must have been exasperating! Artie, listen up! You are the Rightwise Born King, so if you have any objections, you can just stuff it!

So by now you have gathered that this is a light-hearted take on the old fable of the Sword in the Stone thing. Arthuriana nuts of all ages can enjoy this one, but especially those of the female persuasion since many of us fall in love with horses as young girls, even if they've never ridden one.

“Dream Reader” introduces readers to a young Merlin just learning his craft

[stories from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (TMBOM)]

One of my favorite tales from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (aka TMBOM) is this one by Jane Yolen called Dream Reader, which portrays a very young boy who falls in with a troupe of magicians and other entertainers who help him develop the skills he later became famous for.

Primary among them are the gift of dreams that come true. Young Merlin needs help in learning not only how to interpret the dreams that come to him in the night, but how much of that interpretation to pass on to The Powers That Be (TPTB).

The dream is the one about the two dragons who are fighting beneath where a duke tries to build his new tower. The dragons cause each day's building efforts to fall down.

The elder mage who interprets the dream for young Merlin offers the ruling family a logical explanation: “Most likely the Romans built their conduits for their baths there. With the construction, there has been a leakage underground. The natural outflow has been damaged further by armies fighting. And so there has been a pooling under the foundation. Open up the work, drain the pool, remove or reconstruct the Roman pipes, and the building will stand.”

The portraits of the dreamy and starving youth formerly known as Merrillin, of the mage Ambrosius, the singer Viviane, of the town where the newly-married duke is building a tower, are all well-drawn. It seems like a very credible introduction to the young Merlin that ties in smoothly with later tales.

“The Temptations of Merlin” a fine tale of a young wizard trying to find himself and his destiny

[stories from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (TMBOM)]

One of the more satisfying tales from TMBOM is this one by Peter Tremayne, of a young Myrddin who departs from a ravaged abbey where he had taken shelter for the night. He is on a quest to discover the meaning of the curious knot woven into the scrap of cloth which is the only clue to his real parentage and clan.

While on this quest he meets several tests and temptations, most of which he flunks. Among other things, he fails to recognize a young Artio (bear) as the future king who will unite Britain.

I don't mean to make Merlin sound like a fumbler and bumbler. He does have several skills or talents. Among them are a high tolerance for pain and cold, fighting skills both with and without a sword, a working knowledge of the Druid arts including healing, horsemanship which includes fighting while on horseback, a mastery of riddles, gallantry, a kindness to the weak and injured.

However the poor befuddled wiz fails to listen to the sounds of nature when he gets lost in his own thoughts. You know what they say, Merlin, you mustn't let your mind wander, it's too little to be out on its own. And his adoration of women makes him too-easy prey for the duplicitous machinations of characters like Lowri, Centwine's sister.

This flawed character is entirely believable and sympathetic as he gropes his way through various encounters once he leaves the shelter of his Druidic brotherhood.

“Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood” brings Merlin as Green Man within sight

[stories from The Mammoth Book of Merlin (TMBOM)]

Childhood friends look back on a time when in one's innocence, one could sit by a tree and actually hear the Green Man – a trapped Merlin – talking to you. What did he say?, Julie asks. Sara replies, I can't remember.

Sara was orphaned at a young age by her parents' death, and went to live with an uncle in a large, rambling house on a wooded lot. Frequently awaking in the night with panic attacks, Sara would sneak out the next day to nap under the oaks. In her dreams while she napped, she saw a red-haired boy who lived in the tree. He said his name was Merlin.

Her uncle encouraged her interest in Merlin by giving her copies of Le Morte d'Arthur and The Sword in the Stone.

Eventually, after some months of “tree therapy” Sara's night terrors grew less frequent and disappeared completely.

Also eventually she forgets all about her tree friend – until one day, years later, he again appears in her thoughts.

What if we befriended a tree, a nice elder gentlemanly tree, and talked to him (or her) in our dreams? What would we learn from nature in this unconventional way, that reading books could never tell us?  

Explaining The Traditions Linking King Arthur, the Chalice, and the Holy Grail or Holy Blood

by Minnie Apolis

While the well-known book by Dan Brown and its predecessor Holy Blood, Holy Grail, would have us believe that Jesus the Christ married Mary Magdalene and left a sacred bloodline later symbolized by the Holy Grail, it may be that the line of descent is less direct than those authors believed.

For there is yet another tradition, or body of traditions, around Glastonbury, that would also explain the pun between San Graal (Holy Grail) and Sang Real (Royal Blood). The Grail may be real, too, and at one time located in the British Isles, a simple wooden cup, worn down by the ages and long use.

For the royal family was not just Jesus, his mother Mary, father Joseph, and possibly wife Mary Magdalene. Joseph of Arimathea was, British tradition has it, the uncle of Jesus, and he was related to Mary Magdalene as well. In fact, some believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were cousins who grew up together from childhood on.

The identity of King Arthur is lost in antiquity. Many papers and books have been written listing the merits of one candidate or other as the “real” King Arthur. Was he the hero of the Battle of Badon (probably fought about the year 512 AD), a site that still has not been located? But it is seldom if ever mentioned that Glastonbury has a tradition of the pedigree of King Arthur, one that ties in with the royal family of a minor Roman province called Judea.

A historian named John of Glastonbury provided history with the supposed genealogy of King Arthur. In a book titled “The Traditions of Glastonbury”, the pedigree is recited once again, as follows.

'The following pedigree is taken from John's manuscript, giving Arthur's descent from Joseph through Arthur's mother: “Helaius, Nepos Joseph, Genuit Josus, Josu Genuit Aminadab, Aminadab Genuit Filium, qui Genuit Ygernam, de qua Rex Pendragon, Genuit Nobilem et Famosum Regum Arthurum, per Quod Patet, Quod Rex Arthurus de Stirpe Joseph descendit.” [The Latin 'Nepos' means grandson, per White & Riddle's Latin dictionary 1880 AD.]'

Translated, it says that Joseph of Arimathea begot Josus, who begot Aminadab, who begot [son], who begot Igernam, who begot King Pendragon, who begot the famous King Arthur. While we cannot locate any official birth certificates for any of these people, I think you have to give a bit of leeway in that regard. We have no birth certificates, either, for lots of historical persons that we do know lived and died.

Further down in this source book, one is astonished to read that not only is King Arthur descended from Joseph of Arimathea, but so is Galahad and all the other knights of the Round Table.

And of course you cannot have a King Arthur without the Holy Grail somewhere nearby, and indeed it is convenient, maybe a bit too convenient, that the Grail cup is identified with the simple wooden bowl at Nanteos. But we will state the traditions of the cup and its record as a healing device further along in this article.

In one of the earliest pieces of literature about the Grail, it was stated that the Grail was given into the care of Alain, son of Brons and cousin of Josephus.

First we have to stand aside for a moment and clarify that two different vessels are often spoken of as if they were the same object. One is the Chalice, the cup used at the Last Supper. The other is the Grail, the vessel that was used to catch the blood of our Savior as he hung dying on the Cross, and which has a tradition of being a mysterious source of life, healing and prosperity.

So now, the tradition states that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Chalice with him when he came to the British Isles after the death of Jesus. So then what did he do with it? One story says that he first buried it in the earth of, where else? in Chalice Hill. Now we should state in support of this tradition that this belief that Joseph brought it to Britain and placed it in Chalice Hill has been in place for over a thousand years. It was old when Lord Tennyson immortalized it in verse.

So then we have another question: What did this Chalice look like? It was probably a simple wooden drinking cup, like millions of other such cups in the Middle East of that era. It was probably made of olive wood, a very nice, smooth wood preferred for cups, other vessels and utensils.

Britons believed that the Chalice was stored at the House of Nanteos in Wales. How did it get to Wales? Remember back when King Henry the Eighth broke from Catholicism? He then decommissioned the Catholic monasteries, abbeys and Priories. Included in the destruction was the venerable Glastonbury convent.

The last Abbott of Glastonbury entrusted the cup to some monks to carry to safety. They carried it with them over the border into Wales, and stayed for a time at a Cistercian Abbey there. But Henry's men came threateningly close, entering Wales, and the monks picked up and fled yet again, their priceless cup hidden in their effects.

After running another fifteen miles or so, they came to rest at Nanteos Manor, aka the House of Nanteos. The lord of the manor invited the monks to stay and make it their home.

From this time on, the cup – the Chalice from the Last Supper – became rather famous for being a healing device. Miraculous cures were claimed by those who drank from its shallow depths. The cup was shrinking because people would actually bite off a tiny piece of wood to eat, in the belief that it would ensure the efficacy of the vessel's healing properties. So eventually a glass bowl was cast around the reduced wooden bowl of the Chalice, making it a thing of beauty although small.

Records were kept of pledges given for the return of this cup when it was actually lent out to people too sick to travel to Nanteos; borrowers left watches, jewelry, a pound note, all of which were claimed back when the priceless cup was returned. Ailments supposedly cured by the Chalice included epilepsy, fevers, arthritis, rheumatism, etc.

This continued even into the twentieth century. A case dated from 1939 in which two children afflicted with epilepsy drank from the cup and were cured within weeks. A clergyman wrote up the case for the records. Father James Wharton, a clergyman who was assigned to Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire, drank from the Chalice in 1957 and was cured of a crippling arthritis that prevented him from bending his knees.

The Chalice, or what is left of it, bears little resemblance to the silver or gold cups of legend and poetry. The small wooden bowl is blackened and cracked, and rather resembles a dark coconut shell. Its original dimensions were believed to be about five inches in diameter and three inches deep.

That such a modest vessel has occupied the imaginations of millions of Britons, Christians, history buffs, Arthur nuts, and assorted other fans is rather remarkable. The Chalice (Britons believe) is the Nanteos Cup; the true king was the legendary King Arthur, and the Grail is the Holy Blood that lived on from Joseph of Arimathea to King Arthur and his knights, and from them, down to untold descendants. We will close with the lines written by Lord Tennyson:

The cup, the cup, itself, from which our Lord

Drank at the last sad supper with His own.

This, from the blessed land of Aromat-

After the day of darkness, when the dead

Went wandering oer Moriah --- the good saint,

Arimathean Joseph, journeying brought

To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn

Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord.

And there awhile it bode; and if a man

Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,

By faith, of all his ills. But then the times

Grew to such evil that the holy cup

Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd.

. . .

To whom the monk: From our old books I know

That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury,

And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus,

Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build;

And there he built with wattles from the marsh

A little lonely church in days of yore,

For so they say, these books of ours, but seem

Mute of this miracle, far as I have read.

But who first saw the holy thing today?